Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit Defense Blog : Wrongful Conviction Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Andrew M. Hale Law Firm

 The battle between the Cook County State's Attorney's Office and Northwestern's Medill Innocence Project continues to brew. In a recent court hearing, defense attorneys for Anthony McKinney submitted an amended post-conviction petition, deleting references to certain controversial evidence. Judge Diane Cannon questioned the motive of the defense attorneys, asking if the controversial evidence was removed in an effort to quash the State's Attorney's pending subpoena. Stay tuned. . . 

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 The February 2010 issue of Chicago magazine contains an article "The Professor and the Prosecutor: Anita Alvarez's office turns up the heat on David Protess's Medill Innocence Project" that discusses the ongoing battle over the subpoena that the Cook County State's Attorney's Office has served on the Medill Innocence Project. The main issue in the dispute is whether the students in Protess's class were acting as reporters. The article quotes Alvarez stating: "These students wrote no newspaper story on this case, they wrote no magazine articles. . . What is the purpose of this particular class? . . .  The whole purpose of this was to gather information for court, to gather information that they believe is going to exonerate someone." The article also quotes DuPage County state's attorney Joseph Birkett: "If you are working on an investigation and are assembling evidence for a team of lawyers, I'm sorry, you may be a journalist, but in that scenario you are an investigator, and the journalistic privilege is not going to apply." A court hearing on the dispute will be heard later this month by circuit court judge Diane Gordon Cannon.

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News of the Cook County State's Attorney's filed brief, accusing Northwestern University Innocence Project students of paying witnesses in exchange for testimony, has made national headlines. The story was picked up by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press. Nevertheless, no one from the university has demanded the students respond to these allegations. Mr. Protess, the students teacher, has staunchly defended his work and the work of his students. But why not clear their name? Why not cooperate or conduct their own investigation of these claims. Northwestern's response is due in January.  Until then we will continue to wonder - Why is Northwestern fighting these requests? Every day they fail to comply, forces people to question - Is the Innocence Project really so innocent?

If the students were truly paying off witnesses..why would they do that? What do you think?

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Chicago Tribune is Reporting:

The Cook County state's attorney's office today contended student investigators from Northwestern University's Innocence Project paid a witness in its investigation to exonerate a man convicted of murder in 1982.

"This evidence shows that Tony Drakes gave his video statement upon the understanding that he would receive cash if he gave the answers that inculpated himself and that Drakes promptly used the money to purchase crack cocaine," according to a filing made by prosecutors today. The filing argues the students acted as investigators, not reporters, and as such aren't protected by press rights.

Prosecutors allege that after conducting a 2004 interview with Drakes, a private investigator working with students paid a cab driver $60 to take from the interview site, a park in downstate Swansea, to a gas station two miles away. That amount was more than the fare and tip, and leftover cash -- $40 -- was given to Drakes; he used it to buy crack at a nearby crackhouse, the filing states.

According to today's filing, Drakes told the state's attorney's office that the students knew he was looking for money, and he knew they wanted help with McKinney's case. McKinney has been in prison for 31 years. Drakes told prosecutors that he had a 7 p.m. curfew the night of the interview, and that the Northwestern students initially said they wouldn't pay for his statement, but that one student later "flashed a wad of cash" at him, according to the filing.

After the student paid the cabbie, the driver recorded the transaction in his log, today's filing states. Apparently suspicious that it was a drug deal or a sting, he wrote: "detective gave me 60, told me to give him 40, gave me 60... gave him change." The "him" refers to Drakes. According to the filing, the driver's log notes the fare for the two-mile trip to the gas station -- normally about $6 -- was $20. "The driver did not claim his $14 tip, he was worried it was drug money," the filing states.

Here is Michael Lane's Interview - He also claims the students paid him cash. 

We hope this is not true  - but If this is true - shame on Northwestern and shame on the Innocence Project.  Instead of rushing to defend the students, Northwestern should open its own investigation into these allegations and turn over all the requested information to prosecutors.  What are they hiding? Clear your name.  

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Chicago Tribune is reporting: 

"The number of DNA samples from rapes and other serious offenses that sit untested at the Illinois crime lab for more than 30 days remains alarmingly high four years after former Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared the problem had been eliminated. In 2005, the year Blagojevich proclaimed the DNA backlog gone, it included at least 170 cases. And today, 1,167 cases are taking more than a month to analyze, with nearly half of the DNA samples from rape kits, according to a Tribune review of lab statistics. Sexual assault victims and law-enforcement officials say it can take as long as a year for DNA to be analyzed at the Illinois State Police Crime Lab, the third-largest forensic laboratory in the world.

"There are numerous cases in which offenders have remained unidentified due to the inability or the failure of the crime lab to analyze DNA evidence from a crime victim or a crime scene," the Cook County state's attorney's office told the auditor general, according to the report. "These offenders have not only retained their liberty longer than they would have had the lab worked up the evidence in a timely manner, but have gone on to murder and victimize other people."

The findings come at a time when major backlogs of untested rape kits -- some older than a decade -- were recently exposed in Los Angeles County, prompting promises of reforms. Confronted with a serious DNA backlog 10 years ago, New York City vowed to reduce it and now boasts a six-week turnaround time for rape kits, experts say.

After the state lab's DNA backlog first came to light in 2003, Blagojevich and the General Assembly allocated additional funds for forensics and told the lab to make annual reports on progress in cutting the backlog. In July 2005, Blagojevich, armed with state police crime lab statistics, announced the backlog had been eliminated. Blagojevich spokesman Glenn Selig said Thursday that the governor used numbers provided by an assistant and never intended to present false information. In 2007, the state police lab reported its DNA backlog had resurfaced with 668 cases and a turnaround time of 72 days. But the agency assured the governor and the General Assembly that the backlog would be reduced the following year because of improvements.  

Convinced the workload at the lab appeared under control, a non-profit group that had formed to address the problem disbanded. The group, begun four years earlier, raised private funds to help pay for the testing of hundreds of rape kits that sat untested in storage at the Chicago Police Department.  With that task completed, the Women's DNA Initiative saw no need to continue, said Sheri Mecklenburg, who launched the effort when she served as general counsel to the Chicago police superintendent. "We assumed they could keep up with the current caseload," she said. The General Assembly, which appropriates money to the state crime lab and other state agencies, was also in the dark, said state Rep. Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs). "We were lied to," said Durkin, who sponsored legislation in 2007 calling for the audit of the state crime lab. "To know how to handle this, it's extremely important that they act in a transparent way."

In reality, the state crime lab was not including in its reports information about rape kits and other samples outsourced to private labs that were going untested for more than 30 days. Thousands of cases were outsourced each year, with an average turnaround time that exceeded those tested inside the state crime lab, the audit said. Once the auditor general brought this issue to light in 2008, the agency began reporting both its in-house and outsourced backlog."

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